


Runs With Wolves

by Alpha Ella (Leviarty)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Depressed Stiles, Depression, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Road Trips, Stiles-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-17 09:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4660599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leviarty/pseuds/Alpha%20Ella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knew running away wasn’t really the answer – running from the problem never actually solved the problem. He knew that. But he didn’t see a better alternative.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He knew running away wasn’t really the answer – running from the problem never actually solved the problem. He knew that.

But he didn’t see a better alternative.

“Just a few weeks,” he told his dad. “I’ll be back in time for school in January.” He would be missing the last few weeks of the semester, but if he waited any longer, he would never leave. Something would come up, another disaster – he couldn’t deal with anything else. The Dread Doctor’s were gone, but everything was so fucked up.

“What about Christmas, Stiles,” his dad asked.

“Dad-” he started. They had hardly celebrated Christmas in years, not since Claudia died. “I’ll call. I promise. I just… I can’t be here right now.”

He was surprised it went as easily as it did; his dad had always been so protective, so set on making sure he was okay – come to think of it, maybe that’s why he let him go so easily. If Stiles wasn’t in Beacon Hills, he’d be safe. Safer, anyway. The dangers of the real world paled in comparison to the things they faced here.

 

“Be safe,” he said to Lydia. “Call me if anything major happens. I mean-” God, he didn’t want her to call him if something bad happens. He didn’t want anything bad to happen, and he really didn’t think he wanted to know if it did. “Just… call me.”

She kissed him on the cheek and held out a set of keys on a Celtic ring.

“What’s this?”

“The Jeep is toast, Stiles, and I hope you don’t think I’d let you go on a road trip on a smelly old bus.” It was one of her older cars, still in pretty good shape. It wasn’t his Jeep, but a little blue thing that, if he was honest, drove a hell of a lot better than the Jeep ever did.

 

He didn’t plan on saying goodbye to Scott, in fact, he was going to leave town and let him find out from Malia or Lydia or something, but Scott found him.

It was the second worst goodbye in the history of goodbyes.

“We’re you going to say anything?” Scott asked, when Stiles was halfway out the door. He had a pile of clothes in the trunk, some books, his laptop, everything he thinks he might need.

“Wasn’t planning on it.” It wasn’t fair to Scott, he knew, but he wasn’t feeling particularly reasonable.

“Stiles-” Scott started. There was a time when Stiles knew Scott better than he knew himself, when they could communicate without talking, but those times were in the past. Stiles didn’t know what he was going to say, and it seemed, neither did Scott. “I’m sorry,” were the words he settled on. “I should have talked to you-”

“Yeah, you should. And you should have trusted me.” He felt like he should be angry, and part of him still was, but he was so tired. Tired of anger, and tired of losing people, and tired of being second guessed. And he was a little tired of Scott, who was trying, but still looked at him like he was a monster. He wasn’t, but sometimes he thought Scott might be. Because Scott was the one who let monsters run free, who would rather let innocent people die than kill the monsters himself.

He couldn’t accept the apology, not yet. Someday, probably, because Scott was, and always would be his best friend, but right now all he could feel was something between fear and anger.

 

The car, which he had taken to calling Sora, got a ridiculous number of miles to the gallon, and every now and then he found himself missing the frequent gas stops and repair breaks. But it didn’t take long to sink into the lull of constant driving. It felt good, letting his mind run on autopilot as he drove. He turned up the music to drown out any thought he might have of Beacon Hills.

 

Sora drove well, and without the nagging of a check engine light, it was all too easy to forget little things like food and sleep – two things he had never been good at without reminders. Looking into the floor of the passenger seat when he pulled off the highway to fill up his tank, he realized the only thing he’d eaten in the last two days had been a gas station hoagie, and three candy bars. He hadn’t slept at all in that time.

The gas station was a dump, a little hole in the wall with only two pumps, on which read “out of order” in faded lettering. The concrete was cracking, and through it weeds and ugly flowers grew up. Inside was hardly better; a single cashier who reeked of cigarettes was too busy staring at a static-y football game to notice Stiles, until he shouted and waved his arms wildly. He considered grabbing something to eat, but nothing looked like it had been made after Y2K. He handed over a handful of money for the gas, then went back outside, kicking around a rock while he pumped.

The signs leading into town had said this was the only _anything_ for something like 60 miles, and now that Stiles had acknowledged that he should be hungry, all he could think about was the constant grumble in his stomach. He finished filling up the car, then drove off toward what might be generously referred to as a town. Really it was a stretch of road with a motel, a waffle house, a rundown diner, and three shady looking bars. He settled on the diner, because almost anything was better than a waffle house.

And, okay, the diner didn’t actually look so bad, the food looked good and the seats weren’t unreasonably lumpty. There were a half dozen truck drivers inside, and an old couple.

“Can I get you some coffee?” the waitress asked, setting a menu down in front of him. She didn’t look like the kind of riff-raff he expected in a roadside dump of a town – in fact, she reminded him a little of Lydia: she had strawberry blonde hair and rosy cheeks. She had a good ten inches on Lydia though, and her makeup bore a resemblance to a famous painting Stiles couldn’t remember the name of. Her eyes were just a little too blue.

“No thanks… Annabeth,” he said, taking a look at her name tag. “But I will have the biggest stack of blueberry pancakes you can make, with some bacon and orange juice.”

“I’ll get right on it,” she said, quirking a smile at him. When she turned, he skirt twirled a little.

Within a five minute, she returned with a truly monstrous stack of pancakes. He stuff a large bite into his mouth, then immediately regretted it, as it was a little hard to chew. Annabeth sat down across from him and nabbed a piece of his bacon.

“Does your boss approve of stealing from customers plates?” he asked, looking up at her. There was something strange about her, something he couldn’t quite place.

She shrugged. “What’s a nice guy like you doing in Univille?”

“Just passing through,” he said, then gulped down some orange juice. It tasted not quite right, but then, it was hard to find good oranges outside California.

Annabeth hummed, looking curious. Stiles stuffed another pancake in his mouth, and studied her while he chewed. If he looked long enough, he would figure out why she was not quite right too.

He shook his head and took another sip. For a second he face almost looked wolf-ish. He needed to stop hanging around werewolves so much.

“Got a name?” she asked.

“Stiles,” he said through another mouthful. He was hungrier than he’d realized, and suddenly the mountain of pancakes seemed like the best idea he’d had ever.

“Nice to meet you, Stiles. Will you be staying in town tonight?”

He shook his head. “Just passing through,” he said again.

She hummed again. “Too bad.” It sounded just shy of sincere. “How’s your food?”

“Awesome. Though, your OJ could use a little work. Did you add some kind of spice to it, cause I gotta tell you, it’s weird.” He gave it a sniff, and then frowned. There was something familiar about it.

In the distance, he could hear something that sounded suspiciously like howling. “What was that?”

She shrugged. “Probably wolves. You know how territorial they can get.”

Stiles stiffened, then looked around the diner. Two people had entered since he’d started eating; a menacing bald man, and an Amazonian woman with black hair braided down her back. They, and the older couple who had been there, were all watching Stiles, and making little effort to hide it.

“What’s going on here?”

Annabeth shook her head. “Nothing.”

He put his fork down and narrowed his eyes at her. “You put wolfsbane in my juice,” he said.

“Perceptive of you. Yes, I did. I admit, I thought you were someone else. It won’t harm you, of course.”

“But you tried to poison me.”

“Only because I thought you were intentionally encroaching on our territory. If you had been a wolf, you would have known the moment you stepped into our town, and thus staying here could only be seen as an act of aggression. Because you were able to drink without harm, I realize that you are purely human, and you could not have known where you were. However, I suggest you do not linger.”

“Really wasn’t planning on it,” he said, and started to rise from his seat.

She smiled. “You seem like a nice guy, Stiles. Finish your meal, then be on your way.”

Annabeth got up and went back to her other customers.

Stiles was hesitant to stick around – he hadn’t really met other packs before, just the Alphas, who maybe weren’t the prime example. He’d kind of thought, as dumb as it was, that werewolves didn’t really exist outside Beacon Hills. Logically, he knew that they must, but this was the first time he’d seen it.

The old couple and the two newcomers had stopped staring so intently at him, though the woman kept one eye trained on him at all times. It was obvious, now, that she was their Alpha.

He quickly finished his meal and left a pile of money on the table to cover it, then, despite the voice in his head telling him to leave while he still could, he approached the Alpha.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice sounding a hell of a lot more stable than he felt. “I didn’t know you were… you know. I didn’t mean to encroach on your territory.”

She studied him for a moment, then nodded, which he translated to mean that she had accepted his apology and that he probably wouldn’t be killed on the way back to his car.

 

He was back on the road again in no time, driving to the sound of whatever mixtape he’d found in his bag. It was heavy in some places, melodic in others, but mostly it was just sounds to fill the void.

He hated that word, and all the feelings associated with it. The Nogitsune was gone, they were sure, even Theo had been sure of that. But Theo also thought that Void!Stiles still existed, that there was still a deep, dark part of him.

And Stiles didn’t think he was completely wrong. He was, after all, a murderer.

 _No_ he wasn’t. He kicked himself. Donovan was an accident. And the others were the Nogitsune, not him. Not him.

But the blood was on his hands.

God, even hundreds of miles away, Scott was still guilt tripping him over things that had to be done, things that couldn’t be changed. He hated him for it.

 

Hours later, long after the sun had gone down, Stiles eyes started to droop. It had been far too long since he’d slept, and even he needed to rest eventually. He shook himself awake a couple times before pulling over to the side of the road and shutting down the engine. He climbed into the backseat and fell asleep the moment he wedged a sweater under his head.

 

A while later – how long he didn’t know – he awoke to the sound of thumping against glass. He opened his eyes and squinted at the light being shined through the window. He rolled down the window a smidge, and the light lowered. It took a moment for his blurry eyes to recognize that it was a deputy knocking on the window.

“You can’t park here,” the man said. “There’s a bed & breakfast a couple miles from here, but you can’t park here.”

“O-kay,” Stiles said blearily. He took a few minutes to wake himself up enough to drive, then hopped back into the driver’s seat and took off. He considered getting back on the highway and not stopping, but a look at the clock told him he’d only slept a couple hours, and the rearview mirror told him the deputy was going to follow him to his destination.

The bed & breakfast was located in a town that might actually be a town, and everything looked pretty new and well kempt. He stumbled up to the front desk and requested a room. The concierge gave him a strange look (Stiles couldn’t figure out why, because if anyone looked weird, it was that guy, who hardly looked human), but handed him a key to room 4.

The room had a squishy bed and soft sheets and everything smelled clean and it was kind of nice. Even though he felt wide awake, he was asleep again in moments.

 

Morning rolled around and Stiles didn’t really feel like getting out of bed. Bed was nice and cozy, and didn’t involve any of the real world. Eventually he talked himself into a sitting position, and turned on the TV. After a few disheartening news stories, he turned it off again, and padded toward the shower. Though he could hardly stand it, he turned the water to its hottest setting and stood there for a long while, letting it wash over him.

 

He wasn’t hungry, nor was he particularly fond of the ‘togetherness’ of people who frequented B&B, but he knew he should at least grab a muffin or something for the road. The less stops he had to make, the faster he would get to where he was going. Wherever that was.

One step into the dining room had him reconsidering not skipping breakfast and just getting into his car and driving. There were over a dozen people, all chattering loudly. Too loudly.

He was grateful the moment they fell silent, but it would have been better if they weren’t all staring at him with prying eyes.

It hit him quicker this time, like an extra sense he didn’t know he had, didn’t know how to use. One second they’re just a roomful of happy strangers, the next it was obvious they weren’t strangers, they were family, pack.

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t… I’ll just be on my way.”

He skipped the muffin and half ran out to his car. No one followed, but he could see a young girl peering through the window after him.

He turned the car on and loud, thrashing music blared through the speakers. He cringed and pressed the eject button as quickly as his fumbling fingers could find it. He gripped the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles turned white.

He didn’t know how long he sat like that before finally his lung felt like they were working again.

He took a deep breath and shifted into drive.

 

If he thought too hard about it, he would have felt empty, but he seldom let it reach that. Besides, it was all in his head anyway. He didn’t need a pack. He wasn’t a wolf; he didn’t reap the benefit of the whole ‘strength in numbers’ thing. Any feeling of longing for them was purely mental. Besides, he hardly had a pack anymore – maybe not at all.

Okay, that kind of made his heart hurt.

His whole life it had been him and Scott, and then suddenly it was him and Scott and pack. And it had been good, even when pack meant snooty Jackson and broody Derek and angsty Isaac, and troubled Erica and Boyd. And then everyone started leaving and dying and falling apart. But there was still him and Scott, like there always had been, and the people around them changed, but it was okay because it still felt like family, like pack.

All of that was gone now. He and Scott were… well, he didn’t know if they would ever really recover from this. They were fractured, and the pack around them is splintered. It no longer felt like a family, but like a bunch of people tied together with duct tape – just like his Jeep had been. And just like his Jeep, the tape wasn’t holding.

 

He drove for a while longer, music playing quietly in the background. The roads were mostly empty, the only times he had to drive with caution were as he entered the small towns scattered about. Many of them were tiny, but a few were the size of Beacon Hills, big enough to find a decent place to sleep and eat.

Just as he was passing a sign that said “Welcome to Raven Heights”, he heard sirens going off behind him. He sighed, pulled over to the shoulder, and shut down the engine.

“Can I help you, officer?” he asked through the open window.

“What’s your business here,” the man asked in a gruff tone. It was dusk, but the officer was still wearing a pair of reflective glasses. Even with his eyes shielded, the truth is abundantly obvious in a way Stiles still didn’t understand.

“Just passing through,” Stiles said.

“I don’t recommend you do,” the man said. Stiles could see fangs and fur and bright blue eyes that reminded him of Derek. The man hadn’t changed, but it was like Stiles could see what was just beneath the surface.

“Can I go around then?”

The officer nodded curtly, and pointed to a side street that led off to the right. “That road will lead you toward the city. Unclaimed territory. But if you’re spotted near town again, it will be viewed as an act of aggression.”

“That won’t happen. No aggression here,” he said. He started up the car and drove off in the direction he’d been instructed, toward the city. What city that was, he couldn’t be sure. In fact, he wasn’t even sure what state he was in.

He grabbed his phone from the passenger seat, though it had died sometime between the last town and this one. He plugged it in and made a mental reminder to figure out where the hell he was later.

 

The city was a real, honest to god, city, the first one he’d seen since leaving Beacon Hills. Colorado Springs, according to the welcome signs posted.

He frowned and powered up his phone, which had had a couple hours to charge since his detour from Raven Heights. The GPS, which had been periodically logging his location over the last three days, showed that he had taken a bizarre path, one which led him up and down the northeast. If he’d had a destination in mind, he certainly wasn’t taking the short path. He’d driven from Beacon Hills to Denver three years back, and it had taken a little over a day, including a six hour night’s sleep.

He’d taken the scenic route this time, though he hadn’t seen much of anything.

Well, he’d always wanted to see Cheyenne Mountain.

 

He found a decent looking hotel and checked in. He slept for several hours, then got up and spent a little time in Colorado, longer than he’d been anywhere else, and even stopped at a couple universities – he’d already sent out most of his applications, but it didn’t hurt to look, did it?

It was at UCCS that he decided the universe must have been out to get him.

That time it was a single wolf, and when he spotted Stiles looking at him, he ducked his head. He was an omega, Stiles realized, just like he was. Or, like he would have been, if he were a wolf.

It wasn’t like he went looking for the kid, he had no intention of it, but somehow they stumble into each other again when Stiles stopped to get a donut from the campus bakery.

“Sorry,” the guy said, stuttering a little. Stiles can see that under his dark skin, there was even darker fur, long fangs, and gold eyes.

“Hey.” Stiles reached out to stop him. He flinched. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I just want to talk.”

“O-okay.”

He reminded Stiles a little of Isaac – Isaac when the confidence of his wolf was stripped away, Isaac who was a little afraid of the people around him.

“Sit with me?” Stiles asked, nodding to one of the empty tables. They sat down, and Stiles dumped his donut out of its bag. “I’m Stiles.”

“Davis,” he said.

“Nice to meet you, Davis. Would you please stop looking at me like that?”

“Sorry.” Davis ducked his head again.

“So, you’re an omega, right?”

Davis nodded.

“Me too. Kinda.”

“Really?”

“You sound surprised.”

Davis studied him. “Well, you have a very… commanding presence. I would have guessed alpha, not omega.”

Stiles shook his head. “I’m only human.”

Davis looked surprised again. “I… really?”

“What happened to your pack?” Stiles asked. “I mean, I assume you had one.”

Davis nodded. “I wasn’t strong enough. I was turned when I was seventeen. The alpha thought he could train me in his image, but… I washed out. So now I’m on my own.”

They talked for a little while before Davis said something about a psych class he had to get to.

“Wait, give me your phone,” Stiles said. He punched his numbers in, then texted the number to himself. “You can call me whenever. I don’t know firsthand what it’s like to be… you know. But you can talk to be about anything.” He thought about how terrible things might have been for any of the others if they’d been left on their own, if they had no support group that knew the truth.

Davis left, and Stiles stared down at his phone for a long time before typing out a short message to Isaac.

 

He was on the road again for an hour when the phone started buzzing. He didn’t really like talking while he was driving, but if it was his dad, he’d be mad if he didn’t answer.

“Hello?”

“ _What’s wrong?_ ” Isaac asked.

“What? Nothing’s wrong. Why would something be wrong?”

“ _I haven’t heard from any of you in months. Hearing from you out of the blue means something must be wrong._ ”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Stiles said again, rolling his eyes a little. Maybe he shouldn’t have contacted him. “I just… met someone who reminded me of you, and I wanted to check in. We haven’t heard from you in a while.” He said _we_ , like there still was a _we_.

“ _Oh. That’s all_.”

“Forgive me for bothering you. I’ll leave you alone.”

“ _No, it’s okay,_ ” Isaac said quickly. “ _Don’t hang up. It’s good to hear from you._ ”

Stiles smiled a little. “You too.”

 

He was driving on autopilot again, letting the blacktop lead him wherever it may. An unseen force was still steering him away from major cities, but the further east he got, the more densely populated things became, until the space between towns was almost nil.

On the morning of the fifth day, somewhere in northern Indiana, he was getting gas at a little station across from a biker bar, when he knew, _knew_ the universe was out to get him. Three huge guy walked out of the bar, wearing leather jackets with wolf patches, and just beneath the surface were fangs and claws and vibrant blue eyes.

“How does this keep happening?” he asked himself.

“Don’t care who you think you are,” one of the guys said. “There’s three of us, and only one of you.”

“I’m sure my little blue prius is very threatening,” he said. “But I’m not here to cause problems. I just needed gas. I’ll be out of your hair before you know it.”

By some miracle, the guys didn’t approach him. They let him fill up the car, then follow him to the edge of the town before turning back.

Damn, he really needed to figure out how to spot territories _before_ he was already in the middle of them.

And maybe figure out what it was that made them all think he was after their territory. It had been days since he’d left Beacon Hills, surely the scent of his pack had worn away, at least enough that they could tell he was nowhere near them. They were a thousand miles away, with no chance of catching up.

 

He never had a destination in mind, and only really stopped when circumstances demanded it – food, sleep, and bathroom breaks. But when he reached Pennsylvania, he sat up a little straighter, paid a little more attention to the signs around him.

He still didn’t know where he was going, though he knew he was driving through cities now, and it was almost like he knew where he was going, even though he really didn’t.

It was the middle of the night when he reached a stopping point – a section of town that clearly catered toward the students at the nearby university; there were little flags and banners and signs everywhere that read “PENN STATE” in huge letters.

He was still running on auto pilot; it was the only thing that could explain how he’d managed to park his car and walk to the third floor of a nearby apartment building. He was face to face with fading gold numbers that read “43” before he really realized where he was.

Which was to say, he had no idea where he was, nor what he was doing there, but wherever he was, his feet had decided it was where they were supposed to be. They hadn’t consulted his brain on that.

His fist was poised to knock, though he really wasn’t sure why, and so he stopped himself, and turned to walk away.

The door opened behind him.

“Stiles?”

Stiles turned.

“Stiles, what are you doing here?” Derek asked.

“I don’t… I’m not really sure, actually. Derek?”

Derek sidestepped, inviting Stiles in. Stiles walked in, and they stared at one another for a long time before both speaking at once.

“I’m sorry, I really don’t know why I’m here.”

“You smell terrible.”

Stiles blanched. They didn’t see each other for months, and all Derek had to say was ‘you smell terrible.’ “Well, admittedly, I haven’t showered in a few days.”

Derek almost smiled. Almost. “That’s not what I mean. You smell like anxiety and depression. Are you okay?” It was a stupid question, because obviously he wasn’t okay.

“I shouldn’t be here.” Stiles started to move toward the door, but Derek caught him by the wrist. A wave of tension released from his shoulders, and the empty feeling in his heart, and the growing void in his stomach all eased away. “How’d you do that?” he asked. He thought the relieving pain only worked on physical pain.

“Emotional pain is just as real as any other kind.” He tugged Stiles away from the door. “What happened?”

And Stiles had every intention of leaving, but instead he found words tumbling out of his mouth – damn his mouth! – and there was a little bit of sobbing, and it was a miracle if Derek had any idea what he was talking about.

And Derek just let him. He lent his shoulder, and sometimes tissues, and eventually, his couch.

 

Stiles didn’t remember falling asleep, but when he woke, the sun was shining brightly through the window, and Derek was nowhere to be seen.

He had, however, left a note by Stiles’ phone, saying he had gone to work and would be back around noon.

Stiles got off the couch and decided to take a peak around.

It hit him all at once. Derek had an apartment, furniture, a fridge full of food, _a job_. He had settled down here. He wasn’t coming back to Beacon Hills. He was really gone.

Stiles had known he probably wasn’t coming back, or that it would be a while before he did, but he hadn’t anticipated this. He thought maybe Derek was off gallivanting with Braedon, but when she returned without him, it became obvious that was not the case. The theory shifted to Derek running around the jungle with Cora, or something. Stiles wasn’t really sure what he’d pictured, but it wasn’t this.

There was a knock at the door, and before he could stop himself, he’d opened it.

“Hey, could you…. You’re not Derek,” the girl on the other side said. She was tall and had dark, curly hair. Stiles didn’t know if Derek was seeing anyone, but she certainly fit the bill.

“Uh. No. I’m not.”

“Is he around?”

Stiles shook his head.

She frowned. “When he gets back, could you tell him Emille dropped by? My car broke down again.”

Stiles considered offering his assistance, before remembering that most of his car-fixing know how involved duct tape and paper clips and had let to the slow death of his favorite care. “I’ll let him know,” he said.

 

He considered leaving at least a dozen times between waking up at 10:30, and the time that Derek walked in at 12:03. He was pretty sure he wasn’t wanted here; it wasn’t like they were _friends_. But he did talk himself into stay (or, rather, never talked himself into leaving), and any amount of weirdness that might follow was _totally worth it_ because Derek walked in wearing a flannel shirt and thick rimmed glassed.

“Oh my god, what kind of job do you have? Cause, I’ll be honest, I was thinking mechanic, but that’s obviously not the case.”

Derek’s face twitched into a smile. “I’m not a mechanic.”

“Oh, your girlfriend stopped by-”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Derek interjected.

“Oh. Then, some girl named Emille. Her car broke down.”

Derek nodded. “It breaks down regularly. Speaking of… your jeep isn’t parked downstairs. But there is a prius with California plates. Yours?”

Stiles frowned. “Jeep’s gone. Totaled.” It was close to totaled three incidents ago. There had been nothing left to salvage.

“Sorry.”

Stiles shrugged. He felt kind of numb to the whole thing.

“You hungry?” Derek asked, opening the fridge.

Stiles hopped onto one of the barstools. “Don’t tell me you can cook.”

Derek grinned. ”I can cook.”

 

And yeah, apparently he could.

“I might swoon,” Stiles said. “Seriously, this is the best risotto I’ve ever had.”

Derek smiled, and Stiles couldn’t quite get used to that either.

“So, how did you find me?” Derek asked eventually.

Stiles shrugged, setting his fork down. “I really don’t know. I was driving all over the country, sightseeing. Sort of. And then I was just… here. I don’t know.”

“What sights did you see?” he asked

Stiles scrunched his face. “University of Colorado, and… well, actually that’s kind of it.”

Derek studied him for a long time. “You took a cross country sightseeing trip, and you only stopped at once place? It’s not even a sight to see.”

“Well, I stopped several places, they just weren’t, you know, slightly. Hey, maybe you could answer a question for me.”

“Sure. What is it?”

“Look at me. With your real eyes, I mean.”

Derek raised an eyebrow, but obliged. His eyes glowed gold as he studied him. They faded again, and he shrugged. “I just see Stiles, why?”

“You’re sure I’m… human? Completely?”

“The nogitsune is gone,” Derek assured him. “What’s wrong? Why would you think I’d see anything else?”

“I don’t know. I ran into some other wolves on my trip.” Derek’s eyes grew wide, but Stiles waved a hand, shushing him. “I’m fine. But… they all mistook me for a wolf. Or something like that, I don’t really know. But they all looked at me strangely, and of few of them seemed afraid, like… like the void is still there. And I could see them.”

“What do you mean, you could see them?”

“I mean, I looked at them and I could see that they were wolves without them actually changing. I could see the color of their eyes and everything. How is that possible if I’m just human?”

“Do you see it when you look at me?” Derek asked.

Stiles stared at him for a moment. “Yes, but it’s different.”

“Different how?”

Stiles shrugged and diverted his attention back to his plate. He felt naked under Derek’s gaze. “I don’t know. Like, I already know you, you’re not hiding yourself but I know it’s there.”

Derek nodded. “There are myths about people who run with wolves. There’s a difference between humans born into the pack, and humans who become part of the pack. You’re kind of a rarity.” There was as smile in his voice, but Stiles couldn’t look at him. “I’ll check some of my books when I get back to the office.”

Stiles looked up and frowned. “You never said where you worked.”

Derek blushed, and _that_ was a true oddity. “I’m a teacher.”

Stiles jaw fell. “No way. What do you teach?”

“Literature and mythology,” he said.

“Wait, you mean, like, at a university? Penn state? You’re a professor at Penn state? Are you even old enough to do that?”

Derek grinned. “I’m not a professor, just an instructor. I am working toward my doctorate though.”

“Oh man, who knew you were a giant nerd?”

Derek kicked him under the table.

“Ow!”

“Serves you right.”

“Nerd,” Stiles said again.

 

“I should go, get a hotel or something,” Stiles said. Derek had returned from the school again with a small stack of books, some of which weren’t even in English, and they’d spent over an hour pouring over them, and for that hour, it felt just like old times, when things were kind of simple and answers were in books.

But the sun had set and an itchy feeling was crawling into Stiles brain, like he wasn’t supposed to be here. He stood up, and looked around for his shoes.

“That’s really not necessary,” Derek said, grabbing his wrist. “You’re always welcome here.”

“I don’t even know how I got here,” Stiles said, sitting back down on the couch. “I had no idea where you were this whole time, but somehow I found you? Doesn’t that worry you a little? Because when Lydia does that, it always leads to a dead body.”

“I’m obviously not dead,” Derek said. “I don’t know how you were led here, but I don’t think it’s a bad omen.”

“Unless I’m hallucinating this whole conversation. Derek in glasses totally seems like a fever dream.” Oh god did he actually just say that out loud?

He was pretty sure he imagined the blush that crept into Derek’s cheeks.

“You also hallucinate about reading ancient texts?” Derek asked.

“Sometimes.” He slammed a book closed. “Nothing here.” Derek passed him another.

 

He woke on the couch again, but this time, his head was in Derek’s lap. He sat up, careful not to disturb Derek. His head was leaning on the back of the couch, and his glasses had fallen askew, and not for the first time, Stiles found himself wanting to kiss him.

“Stiles?” Derek said, his voice low and weary.

“Sorry,” Stiles said, trying to lower his heart rate.

“Are you okay?” Derek asked, sitting up and setting his glasses on the coffee table.

Stiles nodded. “I’m fine.” Which was kind of a lie, because Derek’s hand was on his, drawing out some of the anxiety he was always feeling. He took a deep breath and pulled his hand away.

“Sorry,” Derek said, turning away from him. What he was sorry for, Stiles wasn’t really sure.

Stiles still really wanted to kiss him.

“Your heart is rising again,” Derek said. “What’s wrong?”

If it had gone up, it was only a minute amount. “Nothing. I’m just really good at getting myself worked up over nothing.” That much Derek should already have known.

“Right. You’re sure you’re okay after everything…” everything that happened in Beacon Hills.

“I’m really not,” Stiles said. “My best friend is scared of me, and I don’t even want to look at him, and Lydia is distant, and Malia and Kira are gone. The pack fell apart and I have no idea how to fix it. I don’t think it _can_ be fixed.”

“You want to know what I think?” Derek asked, setting down the book he’d fallen asleep with.

“Only if it’ll make me feel better.”

Derek smiled a little. “I think you’ve got some kind of internal GPS on all of us. Not just your pack, but lots of them. I think that’s why you took such a strange path here. You knew, somehow, that other packs were there. And your brain, as always, got the signals a little mixed, and instead of avoiding other territories, you went right for them.”

“And I came here because my sensor was telling me specifically not to come here?”

“You said you felt almost compelled to keep going before. Do you still have the feeling that you should be travelling?”

Stiles shook his head.

“Then maybe this is where you were heading for the whole time. You just took a few detours.”

“Why? Why would my subconscious, or whatever, lead me to you?”

Derek shrugged, and Stiles didn’t know how to read the look in his eyes. “I think you instinctually seek out your pack. Wolves do it too; we can smell each other, of course, but we also gravitate towards each other. And since you felt like your pack wasn’t your pack anymore, you looked for the next best thing.”

“You?”

Derek shrugged again. “Me.”

And Stiles couldn’t help it, because Derek’s voice was soft, and he’d travelled all this way, he had to at least know. Know what it felt like.

And he could always say he was hallucinating, thought he was kissing Lydia.

But he wasn’t kissing Lydia, it was Derek, who had short hair and a beard and strong hands, who was kissing back so hard Stiles thought… well, Stiles thought he might swoon.

He laughed against Derek.

“What?” Derek asked, frowning at him.

“I might swoon,” he cackled, causing Derek to roll his eyes. “No, but I really didn’t expect you to, you know, reciprocate.”

“Then why did you kiss me?” Derek asked.

“I had to know what it felt like. Just once, you know?”

“Just once?” Derek asked, brow raised.

“Well, I’m up for more, if you are.”

Derek pulled him closer, almost into his lap, and kissed him again.

 

For a little while, Stiles thought everything might be okay. Which was extraordinarily dumb, because kissing Derek didn’t solve any problems. Well, it solved the problem of his pining, which was one he’d been handling for a while now. All the other problems were still out there though, and kissing Derek didn’t solve any of them.

He woke to tears in his eyes. He sat up and angrily whipped them away. He missed Scott, but he wasn’t deserving of it.

Derek was gone, and had left another note on the nightstand, telling him he’d be in classes most of the day, but he’d be back in the afternoon. Stiles snickered at the little x that signed the note, because damn, Derek was kind of adorably domestic, which was something he never really expected.

And also Derek was into _him_ , which he never expected either.

All of that made it a little easier to suppress all he was feeling toward Beacon Hills and its inhabitants.

The empty feeling was working its way into his head and heart and stomach again, and he didn’t know how to get rid, so he tried to ignore it.

He made a trip down to his car, dug out some clean-ish clothes, and raced back upstairs to shower. He stood under the hot water for a while, unthinking, and scrubbed his skin hard. His soap almost completely unscented, sensitive werewolf noses and all, but he thought it smelled just like Derek.

 

Maybe Derek was right, that he had some sort of extra sense telling him where he was, because finding Derek in a school of 50 thousand was easy, way easier than it should have been.

The door to the lecture hall was left standing open, making his entry silent and unnoticed. Almost unnoticed, because Derek spotted him immediately and made eye contact, but otherwise did not halt his lecture.

Stiles sat down in a vacant chair near the back, and watched more than he listened. Derek really enjoyed all the things he was talking about, and that energy transferred to many of the students.

He’d never harbored any serious fantasies about teacher-student relationships, but he probably would now.

The lecture ended a few minutes later, and the students hastily packed their things away and left. A few headed to the front to talk to Derek, and Stiles followed, but held back until they had said what they wanted.

“Professor Hale,” Stiles said in a low voice, once all the students were out of earshot. “I’ll do anything to bring my grade up.” He arched his eyebrows suggestively.

He had never, in the three years that he’d known Derek, seen him blush, and now he’d seen it at least three times over the course of a day.

Derek rolled his eyes and continued shoving his things into his bag. “You can study and actually show up to class.”

Stiles laughed, then frowned. “How often do your students make a pass at you? Because I’m guessing it’s gotta be like every day. You are unreasonably attractive for a nerd.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” Derek said, smiling. “I never take them up on it.”

“Oh my god, it does happen every day, doesn’t it.”

“Sometimes they’re not even my students.”

“Oh my god. You shouldn’t even be allowed to teach.”

Derek rolled his eyes again. “Come on, I have a couple hours before my next class and I have something I want to talk to you about.”

 

Stiles was human, most probably, and as such, he didn’t need a pack, didn’t need Scott or Liam or Malia or anyone. Sure, maybe he missed them a little, even Scott, despite his anger towards him. But he didn’t need a pack, not like the wolves did.

Still, being around Derek again felt like things had gone back to normal, like the pack was whole and here and all good.

“I think you’re wrong,” Derek said. “You think you don’t need it because you’re human, but I think you need it more than the rest of us.”

“What? Why? I’m just human.”

“Not quite. You’re Kehrseite-kennen.”

“Gesundheit.”

“No, it’s… it’s German, and it’s not totally accurate, but it’s the best I can find. You’re a human part of the pack, one who was not born into it. I told you it was rare. To be honest, I have no idea what that means for you. But I do think you rely on the pack more than you know. You just don’t draw the same kind of strength the rest of us do.” He reached out and took Stiles hand, pulling some of his anxiety away. “Like this. You’ve always been…”

“Emotionally unstable?” Stiles offered.

“I wasn’t going to say it quite like that, but it works. And being around pack has helped, hasn’t it?”

Stiles shrugged. “It used to, yeah.” He’d never really thought about it before, but Derek was right. Since Scott became a werewolf, since they became part of a pack, managing his anxiety and depression and ADHD had been easier. Until recently anyway.

“I think that’s why you came here. To try to fix the pack, bring it back together. The way things are progressing, from what you’ve told me, it’s on the way to being a bunch of omega’s who _used to_ be pack. That’s not good for anyone. Especially not you.”

“Are you? An omega, I mean.”

Derek frowned. “I thought I was. Until you showed up.”

“What does that mean?”

“Your energy. It feels like pack. I thought I’d been gone too long, but you still feel like pack, so, I guess not.” Derek shook his head and diverted his attention to the stack of papers on his desk. “How long before you have to be back?”

Stiles glanced at the calendar. “School starts up on the fourth.”

“Good. Plenty of time then.” Almost three weeks.

“Time for what?”

“Time for you to track down the others and bring them back.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so glad you all enjoyed part one and encouraged me to continue, I couldn’t have done it without you :D

Derek took two days to set his things in order: two days of classes before finals week began, but he’d already assigned a paper instead of a typical final. He could grade papers on the road, from his laptop – Stiles laughed, because Derek with a laptop was just one more thing he couldn’t wrap his head around.

Stiles had dumped all his questionable laundry in Derek’s washing machine, ‘questionable’ being every article that Derek scrunched his nose at, which ended up being almost all of it. All of his clothes now smelled like Derek, which, okay, he wasn’t going to complain, because Derek’s detergent smelled nice.

“You’re sure you want to be stuck in the car with me for the foreseeable future?” Stiles asked as they loaded up his trunk.

“I think I’ll survive,” Derek said, kissing his nose.

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” Stiles said. He’d thought there might have been weirdness between them, especially after all the horrible things they’d been through over the years – though maybe all that history was what made it easy to skip part the awkward beginnings of a relationship, and right into the corny one-liners and bizarre coupley things that made everyone gag. Of course, the relationship, whatever it was, wasn’t exactly a public thing, and even if they were back in Beacon Hills, he could hardly imagine displaying quite as much public affection as, say, Scott was prone to.

“Let’s go,” Derek said, walking around to the passenger door.

Neither of them actually knew where it was they were going, nor if their plan to follow Stiles’ bizarre intuition was even going to work – it could lead them to nowhere useful, or into the hands of an evil pack, or at least a dozen other bad places, but Derek didn’t seem to think that was the case.

 

Turned out he was kind of right. Now that Stiles was consciously aware of the information his brain was feeding him, he knew to avoid routes that led through certain towns. He was still doing so on autopilot, still driving without really seeing, but instead of turning toward the strange feeling the universe was giving him, he steered away. Derek, in between grading papers, was drawing their path on a map, thereby tracing not only their journey, but also probable locations of other packs.

 

“You like roller coasters?” Derek said as they drove through Virginia. The roads here were busier than those in the northwest, and they were making some degree of effort to visit attractions, rather than sticking to side roads as Stiles had done. “Busch Gardens isn’t far from here.”

So they stop at Busch Gardens, ride every coaster, take dozens of increasingly ridiculous pictures, and Stiles thought, for the first time in a long time, things might actually be okay.

 

Of course, that feeling all but disappeared a few hours later, when they were back on the road, with nothing but music and blacktop. He had no idea where he was going, and Derek was an idiot for following him blindly. He was going to drive them off a cliff somewhere, because he had no idea what the fuck he was doing.

And this wasn’t going to work. Whatever he was looking for, _pack_ , he wasn’t going to find it. His pack didn’t exist anymore. Derek was wrong, it was already too late, they were already just wandering omegas, wolves without packs. They would all die, slow and alone.

“Stiles,” Derek said. The downside to werewolves, he’d known for a long time, was that he couldn’t hide any emotion from any of them.

“I’m fine.”

“Pull over. I’ll drive.”

Stiles shook his head. “I’m fine.” Besides, how was he supposed to tell Derek which way to go, when he hadn’t even been able to make the conscious decision to make any turns up to now?

“Just get some rest for a little while.”

Stiles didn’t really want to, because if he wasn’t driving, then he had nothing to distract himself with, but he pulled over to the shoulder and switched spots with Derek. Once they were on the road again, he reached over and took Stiles’ hand.

“Stop,” Stiles said, pulling his hand away. “I know you’re trying to help, but… it’s just a patch. It doesn’t actually make things better, just delays the inevitable.” He can’t go forever letting people take his pain from him, and he was pretty sure the prolonged effect wouldn’t be a good one.

“Sorry,” Derek said, turning his attention back to the road.

They were both quiet for a little while, and Stiles hated it, hated everything. He’d been harboring feelings for Derek far too long to fuck it all up so soon (and he really didn’t want to be left on the side of the road somewhere in the middle of the fucking Carolinas). Finally, he let out a sigh and said “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.” He really was sorry, because he wasn’t mad at Derek, and acting like he was was stupid and pointless.

“It’s okay.”

“No it’s not. You’re being super nice, and I’m being a jerk.”

“You were always kind of a jerk,” Derek said, lips twitching. Stiles would have kicked him is he could. If one of them was a jerk here, it was definitely always Derek.

 “You know I really like you, right?” Stiles asked after a few minutes more. He snorted and buried his face in his hands. “God, just forget I said that.” He looked up to see Derek’s nostrils flared in laughter.

“I like you too, Stiles,” he said.

“Well, then, both of us need to get our heads checked,” Stiles said. Derek licked his finger and stuck it in Stiles ear. “Dude, gross!” They laughed, and Stiles settled into his seat, reclining a little, and closed his eyes. “Turn right here,” he said as they approached a fork in the road.

Derek obliged. “Why?” It was the first time he’d questioned Stiles’ navigation, and Stiles wasn’t sure he had an answer.

“I don’t know. Bad feeling from the left. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

Derek didn’t question him further. He turned up the radio and kept driving, while Stiles started to doze off next to him.

 

He didn’t know how long he slept, but when he woke, the sun had disappeared. The roads were quiet, though he could see the tail lights of a few cars ahead of them. “Stop here,” he said suddenly.

“What?” There wasn’t exactly anywhere for them to pull over.

“There’s got to be a rest stop or something,” Stiles said.

“Stiles, there’s not-”

“There!” Stiles shouted, pointing. There was a clearing in the trees, barely visible in the dark. Derek pulled over, and he’d only just put the car in park, but Stile was already out of the car.

“Where are you going?” Derek asked, turning the car off and following after him. There was another vehicle, a black SUV, but the owner was nowhere in sight. “Stiles, don’t run off,” he said, feeling rather like a babysitter. He caught up to him easily, but took his hand to keep him from running off without him.

“Do you feel it?” Stiles asked.

Derek shook his head, then kind of frowned. “I do smell something… familiar.” A little like gunpower, with a hint of… wolfsbane.

“Stiles, it’s hunters,” he said, tugging him back toward the car. His fangs grew, but he kept back his claws for the moment.

“Yeah, but it’s _our_ hunter.”

“What are you doing here?” Chris Argent asked. Stiles and Derek turned. There was a rifle in his hand, but it had been lowered when he realized they were friends.

“Looking for you, apparently.” Stiles wrinkled his brow in confusion. He hadn’t really thought of Chris as pack, especially not since… not since Allison, but something had led him here. “What are you doing here?”

“I have reason to believe there’s something dangerous in these woods. You two shouldn’t be here.”

There was a rustling in the trees, loud enough for them all to hear. Argent drew his rifle up again, and Derek transformed, pushing Stiles behind him.

 

“Vampires are real?” Stiles asked as they walked back to the car. “What am I saying, of course Vampires are real, why wouldn’t they be? Fucking _vampires_.”

“I’ve never encountered one before,” Derek said, popping the trunk. He grabbed a towel and tossed it to Stiles – because he was always the one who ended up covered in blood. At least it wasn’t his own.

“I have,” Argent said, opening the back of his SUV. He put away his rifle, and swapped it for a handgun filled with, hopefully, wooden bullets. “They don’t travel in packs like wolves do, but where there is one, there are usually more.”

“Need help hunting them down?” Stiles asked.

Argent shook his head. “I know a guy in the area. Probably won’t take kindly to the likes of him,” he said, nodding toward Derek. “Besides, shouldn’t you be in Beacon Hills?”

Stiles shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll get there eventually.” He didn’t completely abhor the prospect of going home anymore, though he still wasn’t excited by it either. Progress was progress, he supposed.

 

Stiles resumed driving, though kind of wished he’d let Derek handle the void that was South Carolina, because it’s just trees and road and more trees. There were no attractions to speak of, and Derek wasn’t even awake to keep him entertained.

He hated that the word void crept so easily into his mind again. He wished he could create a block on it, keep it out forever, but instead it worked its way in everywhere.

 _“I came for Void!Stiles,”_ he remembered Theo saying. The Nogitsune was gone, everyone was sure of that, but it had left something behind, hadn’t it? Something dark, something he wasn’t sure how to control.

He felt Derek’s fingers wrap around his own, but when he looked over, he was still snoring softly, still asleep.

He knew he needed to stop beating himself up over these things, that he needed to let go of it, but he just… couldn’t. Sometimes things were okay, great even, but there were equally many times when he felt like his world had shattered.

He didn’t know if he could get the pack back together, nor did he know if it would do any good. They’d all left for a reason, good, valid reasons. Bringing them together might reunite their family, for a short time, but how long before it all fell apart again?

 

Georgia was worse than North Carolina. Trees and grass and dirt and hillbillies.

“Pull off here,” Derek said.

“Oh, come on, we’re so close to the Florida border,” Stiles groaned. He didn’t want to spend any more time in this god forsaken state.

“They sell the best pecans in the country here,” Derek said, pointing to a warehouse with a giant sign that read **Peaches! Pecans! Produce!**

“I thought Georgia was the peach state,” Stiles said, pulling into a parking space near the doors.

“They have good peaches too.”

And, okay, Derek wasn’t wrong, they were the best pecans he’d ever tasted; the peaches weren’t in season, but were pretty good. Stiles still had his fingers crossed for some good oranges when they hit Florida; he’d been craving them ever since the wolfsbane-spiked orange juice last week.

“Someone spiked your juice with wolfsbane?” Derek asked in outrage.

“They thought I was a wolf invading their territory,” Stiles said, a little defensively. “They were actually very nice people, from what I saw.”

Derek growled a little, and Stiles smirked; that was more like the Derek he knew.

 

A little south of the border, they rented a hotel to get a full night’s sleep, instead of just a few hours here and there in the passenger seat of the car. The bed was lumpy, and Stiles had serious misgivings about the pillows, but it was nice to be lying horizontal, and nice to have Derek’s arms wrapped around him, nuzzling him. It’s downright cute, which, okay, Stiles has been stupidly attracted to him since forever, but has never once associated him with cute. Until now.

 

Hours later, and many miles south, they found good oranges and Isaac. His hair was fluffier than ever (“when was the last time you got a haircut?” Stiles had asked), and he was looking a little thin, but it was so damn good to see him.

He smiled at the sight of him, and hugged them both.

Talking him into coming home was easy, easier than Stiles had expected it would be. Maybe, he thought later, maybe Isaac was lonely too. Maybe he missed having a pack. He wondered if he was still grieving Allison’s death – Stiles certainly couldn’t go a day without thinking about her, and though Scott and Lydia hid it well, he know it still affected them.

Isaac tossed his duffle – everything he owned – in the backseat of the car and climbed in after it. They were on the road again for a short while before he fell asleep, clinging to Derek’s hand. There was a bond between them, one that Stiles could never really understand. He could read all the books in the world, observe things that most humans couldn’t imagine, but at the end of the day, any understanding he had was purely academic.

Every time Derek looked at Isaac, there was a fond expression on his face. Stiles understood that, because it was kind of hard not to love Isaac, but there was more too it. Derek regretted a lot of things he did in his time as Alpha, it had been a failure in many ways, but Isaac wasn’t one of those things.

“Any idea where we’re going next?” Derek asked after a while.

“New Orleans,” he said. It was the first time he had any conscious awareness of exactly where they were headed, and it felt kind of nice to be heading toward something definitive. He didn’t know who they were tracking, finding them wouldn’t be a problem, if the past was any indication.

 

There was a lot of supernatural in New Orleans, and apparently a lot of supernatural blockers, because Derek and Isaac were sneezing and itching, like they were allergic to something in the air.

“Maybe you two should wait in the car,” Stiles suggested.

Neither of them said a word, but he recognized the _like hell_ vibes they were sending him. He rolled his eyes. Werewolves.

They searched for over an hour before Stiles finally stopped and began to question it (Isaac had been questioning him for the better part of that hour, despite Derek’s glare).

“Maybe it’s a false reading,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s so much supernatural shit going on here, maybe I misread it.”

“Maybe not,” Derek said. He turned Stiles around by his shoulders. In the distance, he could see Kira disappearing into a shop down the street.

There was a crowd of people between them, but Stiles managed to shove his way through. He didn’t notice that Derek and Isaac had been caught in the crowd.

The shop was empty when he entered – empty of people, that is. The walls were lined with little jars of spices, herbs, and, _ew_ , pickled frogs.

“You seek answers,” an old woman said, appearing from behind a curtain.

“Uh, no,” Stiles said, shaking his head. “A person, actually. I followed her in here. Asian girl, about my age? You had to have seen her.”

The woman shrugged a little. “What I have seen is of little consequence. What you will see is all that matters.”

“O-kay. That’s infinitely not helpful. Can you tell me where Kira went or not?”

“Follow me,” the woman said, holding the curtain open for him.

Against his better judgment, he followed. She led him into a small room with pillows on the floor. The walls were covered in decorative metals and fabrics, and there was an odd smell.

“You will find that which you seek,” the woman said, then closed him in the room.

“That’s still not helpful!” he shouted after her. He looked around the room, frowning. There was incense burning in every corner, and somewhere around the time he started to feel dizzy did he start to think that maybe, just maybe, he should have stayed outside.

He fell into the pillows, unconscious.

 

_He was standing in the woods. It was dark, so dark that he couldn’t see his feet._

_And then there was the moon, full and bright and illuminating everything. He looked around, then down at his feet. He was standing on the nemeton. He hated this stupid place, but when he tried to move his feet, he found they were stuck._

_“Dammit,” he muttered to himself. He looked up again, and found that he was surrounded, not by trees, as he expected, but by people. Dozens of familiar faces, staring at him, watching him. “What the hell is this?” he asked._

_“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Scott said, taking a step towards him._

_“But so is the path to heaven,” the Sheriff said, shooting Scott a dirty look._

_“So, what, I’m dead?” Stiles asked incredulously. That would suck spectacularly._

_“Not dead, not yet,” Derek said._

_“But I will die?”_

_“Everyone dies,” someone said from behind him. He turned to see Allison watching him with a small smile. “Everyone dies,” she said again._

_“I don’t want to die,” he said. “I’m not ready.”_

_“Neither was I. But it happened. I couldn’t stop it.”_

_“So I’m just supposed to give up?” he asked._

_“No, baby, no,” his mom said, appearing from the shadows. “Never give up.”_

_“Then what-”_

_“Bad times are behind you,” Allison said. “But they’re ahead of you too.”_

_Stiles shook his head. “I can’t keep going like this. It’s too much death and horror.” As he said it, a dozen figures appeared next to them. The dead. Behind him stood the living, in front of him was everyone they’d lost. The number terrified him_

_“It doesn’t have to be,” Allison said._

_“Beacon Hills used to be different,” Laura Hale said. He’d never met her, never heard her voice, yet there she was. She smiled, and for a moment, looked just like Derek. “Under my mother’s guidance, it was an incredible place. A safe haven for the supernatural.”_

_“It’s anything but safe now,” Stiles said. It wasn’t safe for anyone, supernatural or otherwise._

_“No. It has become a magnet for evil. Dark forces know that it has fallen to instability, they seek to control the nemeton.”_

_“So Beacon Hills is doomed? Bad things are going to just keep coming back?”_

_“If you let them.”_

_“But how am I supposed to stop them? I’m just a human.”_

_“You were never just a human, Stiles,” Derek said from behind him. Stiles turned to face the living. “And you’re not alone.”_

 

He woke slowly. His head was pounding, and the pillows were scratchy, but at least he was alive. He pinched himself. Probably alive. He got to his feet and tried the door, which was miraculously open. He kicked himself for not trying that _before_ the wacky incense knocked him out.

Kira was in here somewhere, no doubt going through the same bizarre shamanistic spirit walk as he had. The hallway had dozens of doors. He frowned, then closed his eyes, half wishing his sensory ability was a little more exact. He took a step forward, then another, then six more. He opened the door to his left and opened his eyes.

There she was, fast asleep in a pile of pillows.

“Kira,” he said, trying to wake her. She was alive, but her pulse was slow and she didn’t budge when he tried to shake her awake.

He wasn’t sure what sort of chemical concoction they were using, and while it didn’t seem to have done him any harm, he didn’t know that it would be the same for a fox.

“Come on,” he said, more to himself than her, and scooped her into his arms.

No one stopped him in the hallway, and the gypsy woman was nowhere to be seen, not even in the front of the shop. He carried Kira without interruption until he passed the threshold of the shop. Outside, Derek and Isaac were waiting.

“What the _hell_ ,” Isaac said. “You were in there for over an hour.”

Stiles frowned. It had felt like a few minutes at most, certainly not an hour. “And you didn’t follow me?”

“Couldn’t get through the door,” Derek said. He didn’t seem as worried as Isaac, which was both odd and disheartening. “What happened?”

“Creepy lady drugged me. I hallucinated the nemeton and some dead people. You know, the usual.”

“And Kira?”

“Drugged too. I think she’s okay, but I don’t know… I don’t know what she drugged us with.”

“Let’s get out of here and figure it out somewhere else,” Isaac said.

 

Kira started to stir. “Hmm. Stiles?” she mumbled, blinking slowly.

“Hey,” he said, smiling over her. “How you feeling?”

“Headache.” She frowned.

“Yeah, it’ll pass.”

“Wateryoudoin here?” she asked.

“Came to get you, bring you home.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Can’t go back. I’m dangerous.”

No more dangerous than anything else they’d faced, Stiles thought. “Why are you here?” he asked instead.

“I needed answers. To know what I am,” she said, sitting up. Her voice was no longer slurred, and she seemed completely coherent.

“You’re a fox,” he said, as though it was the most obvious thing. If he looked at her just right, he could see it, the fiery creature surrounding her, protecting her. “And a person.”

“But I’m bad. Scott was scare of what he saw when he looked at me.”

Stiles shook his head. “Scott is scared of a lot of things he shouldn’t be. Wet grass, for instance, and also needles. I kind of get that one, cause needles can hurt, but as far as pain goes, it’s pretty insignificant compared to everything else.”

“I hurt people,” she said, completely overlooking his attempt at humor. Man, he’d really lost his touch. “And I’ll probably hurt more.”

“What did you see in your dream?” he asked. He couldn’t explain it words what his dream had been, nor what it meant. He was certain that none of it was even real, but it had given him something he needed to hear.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I think I talked to the fox, but I don’t remember what she said.”

“Do you remember how it made you feel?”

“Powerful. But not… not dangerous. Not anymore.”

Stiles nodded. “The dread doctors are gone, and I think whatever they did to you is gone too.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

He shrugged. “I can’t.” He held out his hand to pull her to her feet. “Let’s go home?”

 

Her car was parked not far from Stiles, and after assuring them that she was fine, she agreed to follow them back to Beacon Hills.

“Can I drive?” Isaac asked as Derek climbed into the driver’s seat.

“No,” Stiles and Derek said in unison.

“Come on; I have my license.”

“No,” Stiles said again.

Isaac pouted and slumped in his seat.

 

Stiles felt strangely at ease, and he couldn’t help but attribute it to the wolves in his car, and the fox following not far behind.

“You smell better,” Isaac said. “Not so… anxious. Or depressed.”

Stiles smiled a little. “I feel a little better,” he said. He didn’t know how long it would last, how long before he felt down again, but he was determined not to let it consume him.

 

They were halfway through Texas – _asshole state of assholes_ , Stiles had said – when he got a phone call from Davis. He hadn’t heard from him since the few texts he’d gotten in Pennsylvania, and he was a little surprised he was calling.

“Hey,” he answered.

“ _Stiles?_ ” Davis asked. He sounded worried, frantic even. Stiles sat up straighter in his seat, and Derek shot him a questioning look.

“Davis, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“ _I think I hurt someone, Stiles. Oh god, I don’t know what happened._ ”

“Slow down. What happened? What do you remember?” He nudged Derek’s arm, silently instructing him to get into the right lane to start heading north.

“ _I don’t… I don’t know. I woke up covered in blood. I didn’t know who else to call._ ”

“It’s okay, you did the right thing. Listen carefully. Don’t wash your clothes. Put them in a plastic bag and hide them well, but don’t wash them. Get cleaned up and sit tight. Do you have class today?”

“ _No, my last exam was yesterday._ ”

“Do you have anyone expecting you anywhere?” He covered the mouthpiece and turned to Isaac. “Laptop.” He fumbled around in the backseat for a moment before passing it forward.

“ _No, I don’t… I don’t think so._ ”

“Good, then just sit tight and try not to do anything suspicious. Stay away from your apartment if you can. If anyone asks you any questions about where you were or what you remember, don’t answer them.” He opened the laptop and started typing rapidly. “We’ll be there in nine hours or so. Sit tight.”

 

Stiles spent almost an hour searching news sources in and around Colorado Springs, searching for some sign of murder, missing person, or animal attacks that fit the right description. He found plenty of old articles on the subject, but nothing from the last few days.

“Pull over, we’re switching,” Stiles said. Derek drove like an old woman, obey every traffic law under the sun, and under the circumstances, it was unacceptable.

“I know of a pack north of here,” Derek said after studying Stiles’ research for several minutes. “Not one of the good ones, if what I’ve heard is accurate. They turn a few teens each year, and force them through a boot camp of sorts. If they fail, they’re sent out on their own.”

“Omegas,” Stiles said. “I think that’s the pack that turned Davis. He didn’t live up to their expectations.”

“Most of them don’t’ survive on their own for more than a few years.”

 

They made it to Colorado in just over eight hours (no thanks to Derek), and Stiles found Davis easily, despite the fact that he was sitting in the campus library.

“Davis,” Stiles said, announcing himself before getting close enough to scare him. It was surprisingly loud, for a library.

“Stiles,” Davis said, sounding almost surprised to see him there. Then he looked frightened.

“Don’t worry,” Stiles said. “These are friends of mine, Derek, Isaac, and Kira.” Kira smiled and waved, but Derek and Isaac just stood there, looking a little menacing as always. “Come on, guys, crack a smile, we’re here to help him, not scare him.” They both attempted to look less intimidating, but failed miserably. “You know what, never mind. Go find coffee or something.” Neither of them budged.

“You still smell like blood,” Isaac said unhelpfully.

“Not helpful,” Stiles told him. He turned to Davis. “Now, from what we can tell, no body has been recovered; if one has, they’ve managed to keep it from the media, which seems unlikely, so we’ll assume no one’s found it yet. Where did you put your clothes?”

Davis led them to the edge of the school and uncovered a large ziplock bag from the base of a large tree. Stiles refrained from rolling his eyes, but damn, werewolves were so weird sometimes. He took the bag and tossed it to Isaac, who took his cue – he opened the bag and took a deep sniff before running off to track down the source.

“Where did you wake up at?” Derek asked.

“That way,” Davis said, pointing deeper into the woods.

“We’ll go check it out,” Stiles said. “Davis, stay here with Kira.”

“We’re being watched,” Derek said as they walked into the woods. Stiles didn’t know why he bothered whispering.

“Creepy bald guy? Yeah, he’s been following us since the library. Not very subtle, is he.” Stiles didn’t want to make it obvious that he’d been spotted, but he snuck a glance, focusing just enough to see that he was, in fact, a wolf.

 

“There’s nothing here, Stiles,” Derek said. “Just blood, but not much. And I don’t think anyone was killed here.” Which meant that Davis had been brought there after.

Stiles barely had time to suggest that they check in with Isaac before his phone rang. “What have you got?” he answered.

“ _I found the body,_ ” Isaac said. “ _About two miles off campus. A woman in her twenties, probably a student._ ”

“How was she killed?”

“ _I’m not a medical examiner,_ ” he pointed out.

Stiles sighed, a little annoyed. “Does it look like she was mauled by a werewolf, or like it might have been a human?”

“ _Definitely a werewolf. A big one._ ”

 

“I don’t remember anything,” Davis said. “I don’t know if I did it or not. I don’t think it was me, but I can’t remember. God, there was so much blood.”

“It’s okay, just breathe,” Stiles said, resting his hand on Davis’ arm. He couldn’t draw pain away like the wolves could, but it did seem to have a calming effect. “Derek seems to think you are innocent, and I agree.”

“Why?” Davis asked. How could they believe when he himself wasn’t sure?

“Well, first of all, your eyes are still gold,” Stiles said. “But Derek says the pack in Raven Heights do this sort of thing a lot. Pin murders on their washouts. Makes it easier to get rid of you.”

“Unfortunately we can’t do anything about it,” Derek said. “We don’t have the strength or the numbers to take on a vicious pack like that.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Pretend nothing happened?”

“Obviously that’s not going to do a lot of good. If you don’t get arrested in connection to the murder, they’ll just try again. You can’t stay here.”

“Wh- I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“No family?” Stiles asked.

Davis shook his head. “That’s why they chose me.” It was easy to get away with turning a kid who didn’t have anyone to look out for him.

“I guess you’re coming with us then.”

 

Davis rode with Kira (because if he rode in the front car, he and Isaac kept kicking one another, and Stiles could only play the nagging parent for so long). They drove as far as the New Mexico border before stopping to rest for a while.

“Mm, beds are nice,” Isaac said, burying his face in one of the mattresses. It was true; they spent too much time sleeping in cars, and not enough in beds.

They’d gotten a family suite, one with two bedrooms, a TV room, and a kitchenette. It was more than they needed to get a good nights’ sleep, but it was kind of nice to have amenities. Stiles thought they must have looked like the weirdest family ever.

Stiles fell into the master bed, wiggling around a little. He was almost too tired to kick his shoes off, but managed to send them falling over the edge of the bed. Derek climbed in next to him, and wrapped his arms around his waist. He kissed he shoulder and relaxed around him.

“Hey,” Stiles said softly after a few minutes. “Were you worried about me?”

“Hmm?”

“In New Orleans, when I was in that shaman shop. Were you worried?”

“I’d have known if something bad happened.”

That… wasn’t an answer to the question. “But you wouldn’t have been able to do anything if it did.”

He felt Derek shrug a little. “You’re stronger than you realize. I didn’t have to worry, because I knew you’d be okay.”

Oh. That was… unexpected. And confounding. Stiles smiled a little, and started to doze off. “We need to pick up water in the morning,” he mumbled. “Malia is in the desert somewhere.”

 

They drove through the desert for over an hour – neither of their cars was really made for such a journey, and by the end of it, both were covered in dust and sand, and Stiles kind of thought, after all the miles he’d put on the little blue prius in the past couple weeks, it was a miracle that she didn’t just give up right then and there.

“You guys shouldn’t be here,” Malia said, pushing Stiles back, away from the mouth of the cave.

“Did you find her?” Stiles asked.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she repeated instead of answering.

“Stiles,” Derek said, a sound of warning in his voice.

“I know; I feel it too.” Darkness. Complete darkness. Derek, Isaac, Davis, and Kira moved to surround him, instinctively drawn to protect him.

“Well, well, my baby girl’s brought some friends,” the Desert Wolf said, stepping out of the shadows of the cave. “Won’t you introduce me?”

Malia snarled at her.

“We’re her pack,” Stiles said defiantly, earning a glare from the others.

The Desert Wolf laughed and took a few steps closer. The pack took it as a threat, all transforming.

“We’ll, aren’t you an odd duck,” she said.

 

And, okay, things had been remarkably calm for a little too long – even with a half dozen run-ins with stranger wolves, and the thing with the vampire, and the shaman, and the attempted framing of Davis… okay, it sounded like a lot, but really, it had been little things, insignificant blips on the radar of their lives. They were due for a disaster.

The Desert Wolf? Not quite the catastrophe he’d been expecting.

He’d seen the research, everything Malia had tried to keep hidden, everything Lydia and Braedon had been able to find in connection to her. It was _bad_. She was, at her base, a wild murderer. She hunted and killed and mutilated for sport, for money, for fun. She wasn’t just bad, she was the worst. It only made sense for Peter to have been with a psycho like her, but even Peter feared her.

Logically, Stiles wasn’t sure they could overpower her, if it came down to it; they’re three wolves, and coyote, a fox, and a boy, and compared to the Desert Wolf, they were all _really fucking young_. They shouldn’t have been able to take her.

It felt like the fighting went on for hours, and also like it was over in seconds, and Stiles felt really fucking useless. His greatest weapon had always been his mind, but it wasn’t like he could throw a book at her and actually, you know, hurt her.

So he had to stand back and watch while his friends, his _family_ , tried to take her down, and to stay out of the way while they did, and it was moments like this where he kind of wished that he’d taken the bite all those years ago. He didn’t want to be a wolf, he’d known that for a while, but it sure would have been useful. Sitting on the sidelines of a fight wasn’t anything like sitting on the bench during a game.

It all happened so fast that he didn’t think he could recount the details if he had to – and details were a thing he was good at. One moment there was fighting and snarling, and fur and sweat and blood were flying, and the next…

The next, she was dead.

Derek was lying in the sand, clutching his ribs, and Davis was likewise incapacitated, and Isaac unconscious. Kira was still standing, or rather kneeling, but conscious and alert and still fighting. Malia’s hands and claws were covered in blood, standing over the body. Like Derek had killed his uncle, Malia killed her mother.

“We’re gonna do something to make sure she can’t resurrect herself, right?” he asked the moment the comparison crossed his mind.

No one was really sure how to go about ensuring it didn’t happen, but Derek seemed fairly confident that burying her in pieces would at least make it a hell of a lot harder to bring her back.

 

Malia joined the caravan in her truck, following them across the state and into the next.

Stiles smiled, turned the radio up and relaxed a little as he drove. Going home, he thought, felt good. Home didn’t feel like a place of misery, and maybe, maybe it was because home wasn’t a place, but people. Home was the people following him, the people he’d left behind when he’d run from Beacon Hills. You can run from places, but you couldn’t run from home.

 

“Stiles,” Isaac said, and Derek was looking at him with concern too. He didn’t know what was wrong, not at first, but they’re like service dogs, trained to pick up on the slightest changes in chemical balance, so they knew, moment before he did. It was enough warning to pull over the car, before launching himself out of the driver’s seat and throwing up on the side of the road.

It was followed by a surge of anxiety, total panic without cause.

They were all around him, trying to help, getting too close, and he was sure, if any of them touched him, the feeling would kill him. It was all too fucking much.

Someone got them all away, back to their cars, or wherever, and someone was sitting across from him, a few feet away, careful not to get too close, but not leaving him alone either. He’d be grateful for it later, but now all he could feel was terror.

 

“Something’s wrong,” he said later, when the sobs finally stopped tearing through him, when his heart rate came down a little and he remembered how to breath.

“Obviously,” Derek said. Stiles almost laughed, might have if he could remember how.

Stiles stood up and opened the passenger door. He sat down and dug around the center console for his phone. He dialed his dad, but got no answer. He tried again. When it went to voicemail again, another wave of panic went through Stiles, but his body was too fucking tired to go through a full blown attack again.

He dialed Parrish next, then Melissa, the Liam, then finally, Scott. None of them answered. He didn’t want to call Lydia; they’d agreed to only call each other in case of emergency, and…

Fuck, this might be an emergency.

He picked up the phone again to dial, but his phone buzzed before he even pulled open his contacts.

It was Lydia, and the worst omen he could imagine.

He took a deep breath, tried to steady himself before answering. “Hello?” he replied in the most even voice he could muster.

“ _Stiles_ ,” she said, sounding more like she was leaving a message than actually talking to him.. “ _Don’t come back. I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing, but **don’t come back**._ ”

“Lydia, what-”

The line went dead.

He dialed her back, but her phone when straight to voicemail. Her voice sounded weird, empty. She offered a warning. “You’ve reached Lydia. Beacon Hills isn’t safe anymore. Turn back now.”

He hung up and ran through the list of people still in Beacon Hills. He’d already failed to reach many of them, but he had a few left to try.

He dialed Mason, because he, at least, would tell him what Lydia wouldn’t. The others would only try to protect him, keep him away from danger.

By some miracle, Mason did answer.

 

“ _Another pack came to Beacon Hills_ ,” he told him. “ _They were too strong… they couldn’t stop them_.”

There was a moment that Stiles regretted every second he’d been away, blamed himself for not staying when they needed him, blamed himself for all the bad things that happened. But he looked up, and found that he was surrounded by pack again, and that he wasn’t the first to leave, that their pack had been falling apart for a long time. If he’d stayed in Beacon Hills, things wouldn’t have been any different. He’d probably have only gotten in the way.

“ _They banished us, everyone who was close to the pack_.”

“Banished?”

“ _Yeah. We’re okay though… well…_ ”

“Well what? Who’s not okay?” Stiles thought through the words Mason had said. “Liam?”

“ _He’s… pretty bad. Melissa’s taking care of him as best she can, but… she’s not sure. It’s pretty bad._ ”

Stiles had a sick feeling in his stomach, feared he might lose it again. “And Scott?” he asked, when everything in his body was screaming not to ask.

There was a long silence, in which Stiles thought Mason might have hung up.

“ _I think Scott is dead._ ”


	3. Chapter 3

His phone hit the ground and shattered.

Time moved too slowly around him, the pack circling, frantic.

Stiles didn’t know how much time passed, because it felt like none was passing at all.

He couldn’t fathom it. How could Scott be… it just wasn’t possible. The panic, and horrid feeling in the pit of his stomach, it felt terrible, but nothing was as terrible as the notion that Scott was gone.

Then suddenly, everything was moving again.

“He can’t really be dead, can he?” Malia asked.

“I don’t know,” Derek said, sounded frustrated, like he’d already said as much several time. “I don’t know.”

“Everyone, get back in your cars,” Stiles said. “We’re going home.”

No one moved.

“Is that… I mean, Lydia said…” Kira started.

“I don’t care what Lydia said. We’re going back!” The scattered, getting into their vehicles and starting them up.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Derek asked when he sat down in the driver’s seat.

“No,” Stiles said. “But we can’t just…” He didn’t know. He had no fucking clue. “I have to make sure my dad’s okay, and find out what happened to Scott.”

Derek nodded and started the car.

“Los Angeles first,” Stiles said. “Then home.” He picked Derek’s phone up off the dash and sent out three texts. First, to Argent and Braedon: **SOS, need you in BH ASAP** ; then to Cora: **Can you make it to BH by tomorrow morning?** He signed them both with his name, then scrolled through the contacts list. He frowned, weighing his options back and forth. He couldn’t very well send a text, it wouldn’t be taken seriously, but he also wasn’t even sure he wanted to go this route.

“I’m going to regret this,” he said, before hitting the call button.

“ _Derek?_ ” The voice on the other end sounded surprised.

“It’s Stiles,” he corrected.

“ _Oh. What do you want?_ ”

“We need your help. Think you could hop on a plane and get to Beacon Hills?”

“ _Um… I guess. I could be in Brighton in like twelve hours._ ” Brighton was the nearest airport to Beacon Hills, though well over an hour away.

“Good. Do it.”

“ _Stiles, what is going on?_ ” Jackson asked.

“Shit hit the fan again, and I get the feeling we’re going to need every fighter we’ve got. Including you.”

“ _Fine, I’ll be there as soon as I can._ ”

“Stay in Brighton, we’ll pick you up on the way.” He hung up.

“Was that wise?” Isaac asked.

Stiles shrugged. “Probably not.” There was no love lost between he and Jackson, and in fact, there were few people in Beacon Hills who missed him, but Stiles knew they might need him. And, hey, since he was doing this whole reuniting-the-pack thing, he might as well go all out, right?

“You know we can’t make it there in 12 hours, right?” Derek said. “Definitely not with a layover in LA.”

“Not with the way you drive,” Isaac said. “And why are we going to LA?”

 

When Stiles looked at Danny, he blinked a few times, trying to focus. He’d never noticed it before, but there was something… off, something not quite human. He always thought Danny had some kind of suspicions about what was really going on, but never had any reason to think he was anything more. When his eyes finally focused on it, he could finally see the truth. Danny was old, _ancient,_ really. Which was impossible, because he’d known Danny since they were six.

“What the hell?” Danny asked.

“What?” Stiles said. That was supposed to be his line; after all, Danny was the one who was apparently not as human as expected.

“Stiles, your eyes,” Isaac said, his jaw dropping open.

“What? What’s wrong with my eyes?”

The other circled around to see for themselves. He blinked.

“They’re red,” Malia said.

“Alpha red,” Derek clarified, though as far as clarity went, this was pretty much mud.

“What?” Stiles asked again.

“When you looked at Danny, your eyes turned red.”

“I was just… trying to figure out what he was.”

“What I am, is insignificant compared to the impossibility of what you are,” Danny said.

“I’m just a human,” Stiles said, shaking his head. Nothing special or incredible or impossible there.

“A human _alpha_ ,” Danny said.

“That’s not possible,” Ethan said.

“Yet here we are.”

“But if he’s…” Kira said. “If he’s the Alpha, then that must mean that Scott’s really…”

No one finished her statement, no one willing to say the words. Stiles felt sick, and he could see he wasn’t the only one.

“We don’t have time for this,” Stiles said, shaking his head. “We have to go back. It’s the only way to know for sure.”

 

Ethan joined their convoy on his bike, while Danny climbed in the back of Stiles’ car, at Stiles’ request.

He explained about himself, answered all of Stiles’ questions. He was an Immortal, capital I. Where vampires were immune to the passage of time, but vulnerable to specific weapons – sunlight, stake to the heart, etc – Danny was truly immortal, could not be killed by any known means.

“But I’ve known you since we were kids,” Stiles said.

Danny smiled a little. “It’s kind of complicated, and hard to explain to mortals. Every few decades I reset, go back to childhood.”

“Like Buddhism?” Stiles asked. “Your soul is reborn in a new body?”

Danny shook his head. “No. I have always, and will always look like this. When my body reaches a certain level of cellular degradation, I regress. Did you ever see that movie _Benjamin Button_?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s nothing like that. It’s probably easier to just accept that I am an Immortal.”

“What if we cut off your head?” Isaac asked. “Would you die then?”

Danny shook his head. “I’d prefer if you didn’t try, though.”

“This is surreal,” Stiles said.

“I’m sorry, my immortality has precedence; there are others, there are _rules_ , strict ones that must be adhered to. You’re the one that’s completely impossible. I’ve been around for a _long time_ , Stiles, I’ve seen everything the supernatural world has to offer, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Then you all must be wrong,” Stiles said dismissively. He didn’t want to think about being alpha, what it meant about the universe, and more importantly, what it meant about Scott.

“I know what I saw,” Danny said. “You _are_ the alpha.”

“He’s right,” Derek said. He stole a look at Stiles, then returned his eyes to the road. “I have no doubt.”

Stiles didn’t know what to do with that information, so he did the only thing he knew how to: ignored it and moved to something else.

“So all that time, everything that happened, you knew? Werewolves and all that?”

Danny shrugged. “Pretty much. I definitely knew he wasn’t your _cousin_.” Stiles laughed, and Derek glared at the memory. Stiles would have kissed him, if not for the audience. “I didn’t know Jackson was a Kanima, not at first anyway. Not like I could do anything about it anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Stiles asked.

“Remember those rules I mentioned? I can’t intervene, can’t directly interfere in the lives of lower species.”

“Aren’t you kind of doing just that?” Derek asked.

Danny shook his head. “You sought me out. I could never tell you what I was, because it would be a violation, but because Stiles saw my true face, it voids a lot of the interference rules. So long as you ask the right questions, I can give answers. I can’t choose to get involved in your affairs, but if you force me to, I must, and if you ask, I can decide.”

Stiles thought on that for a long time, before turning in his seat to face Danny. “This is me asking. Beacon Hills is in trouble. Will you help us fight?”

“Of course,” Danny said without a moment of thought.

 

Somewhere between LA and Brighton, Argent caught up, and a short while later, another SUV fell in line, containing Braedon and Cora.

Stiles might have felt elation, if he didn’t feel so damn terrible.

 

“You’re late, egghead,” Jackson said.

“Sorry, we had to stop and pick up some groceries,” Stiles said without an ounce of mirth. They played a round of musical cars, putting Isaac in the driver’s seat of Malia’s truck, Davis driving Kira’s car, and Stiles back behind the wheel, despite the fact that he was exhausted, not having slept since before New Mexico.

“Good to see you too, asshole,” Danny said, hugging his best friend. Stiles was grateful for his presence, providing a buffer between everyone and Jackson.

“You okay?” Derek asked in the moment of solitude they had.

“Nope,” Stiles said. Pretty damn far from okay.

 

“What are you doing?” Derek asked when Stiles turned off the main road back to Beacon Hills. They were still almost an hour away. Stiles turned again, bringing them toward the warehouse district of whatever little city they were in.

“Beacon Hills is that way, doofus,” Jackson said, earning a growl from Derek, and an elbow to the ribs from Danny.

Stiles drove a few minutes more, before parking by one of the bigger warehouses. He didn’t wait for the others to park before getting out and running up to the garage door and opening it.

He could almost feel the surge of energy from those inside: surprise, worry, fear.

There were beds and chairs set up, and in them sat a half dozen people: Lydia and her mom, Kira’s parents, Parrish, and Mason.

“Stiles, what are you doing here?” Lydia exclaimed, furious. She was running at him, but stopped when she saw Jackson walk in behind him. “What is this?”

“What’s going on?” the Sheriff asked, coming from around a corner.

“Dad,” Stiles said, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He ran to hug him.

He hugged him back, holding on tight, but when he spoke, he said “You weren’t supposed to come back.”

“Like hell,” Stiles said into his shoulder.

“It’s not safe,” Lydia said.

“I know. That’s why I brought reinforcements.” As he said it, they filed in the open door behind him; six werewolves, a fox, a coyote, an Immortal, and the two most badass humans he knew. It was hardly the cavalry, but it was a hell of a lot more than he had a few weeks ago.

Lydia rounded on Mason. “What did you tell him?”

“What makes you think I told him anything?” Mason said, throwing his hands up in defense.

“Don’t be mad at him,” Stiles said. “You didn’t really think you could keep me away, did you?”

“You came back for nothing,” Lydia said, shaking her head. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

“Nonetheless, it’s good to have you,” his dad said, shaking Argent’s hand, then Derek’s. It was so surreal, knowing that his dad and his boyfriend were sort of friends, or at the very least, friendly, especially after the number of times he’d been, albeit falsely, arrested.

“What happened?” Argent asked, jumping right in. He already had a plan partially forming, but without the details, they could do nothing.

“I think Lydia can fill you in a little better than I can,” he said.

“Fine, whatever,” Lydia said, throwing her hands in the air, and leading them across the warehouse to where a little table had been set up.

Stiles, meanwhile, walked in the opposite direction, ducking under a makeshift curtain. There, he found Liam, unconscious and bloody, lying on a table that looked far from sterile. Melissa was sitting on the ground against the wall, with her head in her hands. Her scrubs were covered in blood, and when she looked up at him, her face was stained with blood and tears. She was exhausted and miserable.

“What happened?” Stiles asked softly. He didn’t know if he was asking about Liam or Scott, didn’t know if he wanted the answer to either.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, and I don’t know how to help him. I’ve been trying, but…” she shook her head again. “He’s dying, and I don’t know how to stop it.” Everything was a thousand times worse than Stiles could have imagined, because if Melissa had given up? Things were bad. Really bad.

Stiles took a few steps toward Liam, carefully took his hand. His torso had been shredded, black and red blood was everywhere, oozing. Stiles found it impossible to look at, but harder to look away. The gears of his brain started to spin; wounds inflicted by an Alpha took longer to heal. Black ooze was his body’s failing attempt to fight off infection. The wounds were too severe for his healing ability, and he was far beyond the help of ordinary medicine. Wolves could take away pain, but Stiles didn’t want to do that; he wanted, more than anything, to take away his injuries, to make him whole again.

“Stiles, what are you doing?” Melissa said, slowly drawing herself to her feet.

“Ow,” he said, scrunching his face. He winced, almost pulling away, but somehow held on. “Ow ow ow,” he said. Finally it became too much to bear and he let go of Liam and took a few steps backward, clutching his abdomen.

“Stiles!” she said again, running toward him. She lifted up his shirt, and what they found was a series of long, pale scars, stretching from one side to the other.

“I’m fine,” he said. The pain had almost completely dissipated. “Liam…”

Liam’s fingers were moving, and when Melissa moved to check on him, she found that his once open wounds had almost completely closed up.

“This is impossible,” she said, shaking her head. Impossible.

Stiles looked to the curtain, where Derek was watching, not a hit of surprise on his face.

 

Stiles loved his pack, loved them, but found himself sitting in his car rather than in the warehouse with them. He couldn’t handle the looks they were all giving him, like he had answers, like he knew something they didn’t. He had none.

A rival pack, led by an Alpha by the name of Roshak, had come to Beacon Hills a few days ago, and Scott, god, stupid fucking _Scott_ just let them. Not like he had much choice, he could hardly defend his territory with one beta and a couple supernaturals whose best abilities came out only in a fugue state. But Scott’s defining feature was that he had always been a lover, not a fighter. It had been that which allowed him to rise to true alpha, and Stiles loves him for it – loves, because he still refused to believe, despite all the evidence, that Scott was dead. Stiles loves him, but he also knew he was a fucking idiot. It was Scott’s refusal to fight, to do what was necessary, that led to the loss of Beacon Hills.

Derek climbed into the passenger seat of the car, and watched Stiles for a long time.

“I don’t have any answers,” Stiles said finally. Unless Derek wanted to know anything about Buffy, or Firefly, or Star Trek.

“I didn’t expect that you did,” Derek said.

Stiles turned to him. “Did you know?” he asked.

“Know what?”

“What was going to happen to me. That I would become… alpha. That I could fix Liam.”

Derek frowned. “There is no precedence for this. No human has ever become alpha. It’s completely unheard of.”

“But did you know?” Because he never seemed surprised by any of it.

“I know you make a habit of doing the impossible.”

That still didn’t answer the question, except that it kind of did, for Stiles anyway.

“What’s Argent’s plan?” he asked after a while.

“What do you think?”

“Go in guns blazing. Will it work?”

Derek shrugged. “It might. As just wolves, we’re outnumbered, but he thinks we might be able to tip the scales with shotguns and wolfsbane. We move out in the morning. Melissa, Natalie, and Ken are going to stay here with Liam. Everyone else is going.”

Stiles nodded, leaning back in his seat a little bit, and closed his eyes. He wondered, vaguely, if Derek was on a first-name basis with all the parents, or just those. Did he call his dad Jedrek? He was pretty sure no one called him that, as it was pretty high up the list of dreadful names inflicted on the Stilinski men.

“We should go inside, get some rest,” Derek said. Stiles didn’t want to go back inside, didn’t want them all to look at him again. “Hey, Stiles, look at me.” He opened his eyes, looked at Derek. “There’s a reason this happened, you know that, right? There’s a reason _you’re_ the Alpha.” Stiles couldn’t figure out what it was. “You take care of us. All of us, you always have. It’s not like Peter, whole stole it, or me, who didn’t have a choice. It’s not like Scott; he rose because he wanted it, because he was strong and thought knew how to lead.” Stiles barely had the chance to interpret it all wrong before Derek continued. “You’re a different kind of strong, and you’ve earned our respect. You’re the Alpha, not because you demand that we follow you, but because every single one of us _will_ follow you to the end of the earth.”

“I don’t want that kind of power,” Stiles said, wiping tears away from his eyes. He certainly didn’t want it in exchange for Scott. He’d give it all up in a second if it meant having Scott back.

“Too bad, you’ve got it. All those people in there, you know why they look to you for answers? Because, up till now, you’ve always had them.” It was a hell of a lot of pressure to put on a person, but it was him who put it there, him who created the expectation that he would have the answers.

Derek kissed him lightly. “I’m gonna go back inside. Come with me?”

Stiles took a deep breath. “Give me a few minutes.”

Derek nodded and got out of the car. Stiles sat there with his head in his hands for a few minutes, before pulling out his laptop and booting it up.

 

Almost everyone was asleep when he went in a little while later. The wolves were all piled together, like they always seemed to do when there were three or more of them. It was weird, seeing them all together like that, when really they weren’t much of a pack. Most of them were virtual strangers, only connected by Stiles. That was his power: bringing people together.

His dad was sitting at one entrance and Argent at the other, both holding shotguns, guarding everyone else while they slept. They were fully human, but not so unlike the wolves as they believed.

He sat down next to his dad, intent on asking about Satomi, but instead, the words that tumbled out of his mouth were “I’m dating Derek Hale.” He buried his face in his hands again, mortified.

His dad just laughed, causing Stiles to look up at him. “I figured that one out on my own, actually,” he said. “Believe it or not, I know my son pretty well.”

“So you… approve?”

“Would I prefer you to be with someone with a less questionable history, of course, but there are worse people in the world than Derek. That said, I won’t hesitate to kill him if he steps out of line.”

Stiles smiled a little. “Thanks dad.”

“Are you happy?”

Stiles nodded. “With Derek, yeah, I am.” All of his misery and sadness at this point was all because of this other pack, because of Scott. He wanted to ask what happened, wanted to know everything they knew about why they thought Scott was dead, why they weren’t sure. But he also didn’t want to know, so instead he asked the other question burning in his mind. “What about Satomi’s pack?”

“What about them?”

“Well, her territory is right on the edge of ours. Her alliance with Scott allowed for some crossover between the two, that’s why Brett was allowed to hang out in Beacon Hills whenever he wanted. But with this new pack taking over… did they take her territory too?” Her pack was still weak, maybe stronger than Scott had been, but not much. If they had tried, surely they would have succeeded.

“I don’t know,” his dad said, shaking his head. Which he should have expected, because he wasn’t the most in tune with the inner workings of pack dynamics. When this was all over, Stiles was going to give him a copy of his bestiary.

Stiles got up and approached Mason, who was sleeping near the wolves, but not touching any of them. He stirred when Stiles nudged him. “Hey, I need to try to get a hold of Brett.” Mason rifled through his pockets and handed Stiles his phone.

 

Stiles didn’t get much sleep, but then, he never did.

“I talked to Satomi,” he said, when everyone else was awake. “Her pack is only five strong, but they’re willing to help us fight.” She recognized that it was only a matter of time before Roshak moved to her territory, sought to control all of Beacon County. “And I have another idea that might be considered insane and probably idiotic.”

“Well, don’t leave us hanging,” Lydia said.

“Peter is still in Eichen House.” A ripple of dissent spread through those who knew Peter. “Look, I know he’s never been much of a friend, but he has been a decent ally, at times. I don’t like it, but I think… I think we need him.”

“He’s right,” Lydia said, hanging her head. She hated Peter as much as anyone, probably more; but she was also the only person who’d really seen what they were up against. She reminded them as much.

“How are we going to break him out?” Derek asked. “Most of us can’t get into the supernatural wing.”

“I’ll go,” Stiles said. “It’s my stupid idea, right?”

“I’m sure I’m not the only one that’s less than enthusiastic about you going you going to see Peter Hale without some backup,” Parrish said.

“I’ll go,” his dad said. “I’m the only one here who can pull the Sheriff card to get them to open the doors anyway.”

 

“You know this is a pretty bad idea, right?” Derek said, holding on to Stiles.

“Yep.”

“And I won’t hesitate to rip his throat out again if he so much as looks at you funny.”

“I’m counting on it.” He kissed Derek, then handed him his keys. “Take care of my car,” he said, like they’re going to be apart for more than an hour or two. He kissed him again, then got into the passenger’s seat of the Sheriff’s car, where his dad was waiting.

 

Stiles didn’t think they could rely on his humanity to get them safely across the border – he’d already met too many wolves who saw him as a threat. But Eichen House was on the edge of their territory – Stiles still thought of it as his, theirs; the Roshak pack were merely squatters – so he was fairly sure they could get in and out without rising suspicion from Roshak’s wolves, unless one of them happened to be very close by.

His dad flashed his badge, and somehow talked the warden into letting them into the restricted wing. Stiles knew this was the easy part though, that the hard part would be getting back out, with Peter in toe (and without any harm coming to the staff).

“Well, isn’t this interesting,” Peter said, rising from his bed to look at them through his window. “What can I do for the Stilinskis today?”

“We don’t have to do this,” his dad said quietly. He probably meant they _shouldn’t_ do this, which Stiles already knew, but wasn’t prepared to face the alternative.

Stiles took a step closer to Peter. “Feeling murderous lately?”

Peter shrugged. “It’s in my nature. But I’ve been good. Three months without incident.” Stiles mentally did the math; Peter had been locked up for over six months, which meant that at least one person had been hurt, possibly killed. “Just a little nibble,” Peter assured him.

“We’re not doing this,” his dad said, pulling Stiles away.

“Doing what? Were you planning on, dare I ask, releasing me?”

“Breaking you out, actually,” Stiles said. “Give me a reason I should.”

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need me,” Peter said. “Not you, and certainly not him. Whatever is out there is a hell of a lot worse than I am.”

He was right, and it was all the reason they needed.

“Dad?” Stiles said, holding his hand out for the keys. He looked hesitant to hand them over, but…

Well, they didn’t really need them. Peter broke the handle and forced the door open. Stiles was… okay, he was a little impressed. Not that he was able to break it open, but that he’d been able to do it the whole time, and hadn’t.

Peter stood close to Stiles and took a deep sniff. The sheriff raised his gun to his face (the gun Stiles was still surprised the warden allowed him to bring in). “Back up.”

“Relax, sheriff, I’m not going to harm him,” Peter said. He took a step back though, and studied Stiles a moment longer. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing happened to me. Let’s go,” he said, turning on his tail. Peter followed, and his dad took up the rear, gun trained on Peter the whole time.

Stiles felt weird, totally at odds. On the one hand, he hated Peter, hated him incredibly, for turning Scott, for getting them into this mess, for hurting Lydia, for killing Laura, for betraying Derek time and again. But still part of him considered Peter to be pack, despite all that he had done. No doubt the same part of him that considered Jackson and Ethan pack.

 

“Harm one hair on him and you will die,” Derek said when they’re back together with group A. They’ve divided into three teams, in different positions around town, ready to move at a moment’s notice.

“Stiles? I wouldn’t dare hurt someone as incredible as him.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” one of the girl’s from Satomi’s pack asked. Liz something, if memory served.

“Don’t,” the other, Joanne, said, nudging her friend and packmate. It wasn’t their place to question another pack. They were here to provide backup, because Satomi had told to; not to pry into the inner workings of a stronger pack.

“I know how to respect true power when I see it,” Peter said, baffling Stiles further.

“We should be going,” Parrish said. There was a shotgun in his hand, but Stiles though it was a little silly; after all, he was one of the most powerful among them, he hardly needed a weapon to do damage.

 

“Alright, this is too easy,” Peter said, stopping.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you _not_ to say exactly those words?” Lydia asked.

“We’ve been circling for over an hour. They have to know we’re here by now. Why haven’t they attacked?”

“Maybe they’re waiting for the perfectly cliché moment to act,” Stiles said. That moment being right now.

Stiles wasn’t afraid, though maybe he should have been. He’d seen a lot of monsters, been possessed by one, was standing next to another. Werewolves didn’t scare him, never really had.

The first wolf lunged right for him, no doubt recognizing him as the weakest, but failed to take into consideration all that was around him.

Peter stepped between them, fangs bared, and tore the throat out of the wolf without a second thought.

The first drop of blood was spilt, and a dozen other wolves came in, huge, monstrous creatures. He knew his wolves were young and small, but compared to Roshak’s pack, they’re tiny, insignificant.

Stiles sent out an **SOS** to the others, drawing them from their positions into the fight. It was only a few minutes before they arrived.

His pack, small as they were, was powerful, didn’t give up easily.

Stiles didn’t carry a weapon, never had anything more than a bat. He’d been told, a few times, that his greatest weapon was his mind, and though it had always sounded corny, he’d always believed it. Research and knowledge had always been important; to him, more important than fangs and claws.

But watching the fight unfurl, he realized he had another weapon now – power. It was a terrifying thing, to realize that he’d led them to this, that they’d all followed willingly, without hesitation. This decision could get them killed, every last one of them, and it would be on him. He had the greatest weapon in the world, and it would only kill everyone he ever loved.

A terrible feeling gnawed in the pit of his stomach as he backed away from the fight. He walked and walked and walked until he tripped over…

The roots of the nemeton.

He opened the doors to the root cellar.

“Oh my god, Scott!” he shouted.

Scott stirred slightly, but his eyelids were heavy. “St-les?” he mumbled.

“Hey, buddy,” Stiles said, grinning with elation. Scott was alive. He looked like shit, was bloody and tired, but _alive_. Stiles cut down the ropes tying him in place. “What’s say we get you out of here?”

“Roshak gone?” Scott asked, his head falling against Stiles shoulder as he tried and failed to help him to his feet. Stiles sighed and settled for an alternative. Scott was a heavy mass of muscle, but he was pretty sure he’d carried heavier.

“Not yet, but he will be soon,” Stiles said. He was confident in his pack.

“Can’t kill him,” Scott mumbled against Stiles’ neck. Stiles blanched and almost dropped him. He could not be serious.

“You can’t be serious,” he said.

“Can’t kill people just because we disagree with them,” Scott said, regaining some coherency.

“This isn’t a difference of opinion!” Stiles said. “It’s not an argument over who gets the blue crayon. They tried to kill you, left Liam for dead. They attacked _us_ , unprovoked. This is our territory, and we’ll defend it.”

Scott shook his head. “Not our territory anymore. I’m not even the alpha.”

“I know,” Stiles said. He turned to Scott, willed his eyes to change. “I am.”

 

Team Beacon County won, which was not so much a shock as it was a relief. Deep down, Stiles had always thought they would win, didn’t think there was a chance they couldn’t, not now that they were together again.

Roshak and half his pack were dead, and Scott? Scott was mad.

Stiles was pissed.

“You’re an idiot,” he said. “You’re my brother and I love you, but you’re an idiot.”

“We’re not murderers!” Scott shouted back at him.

“You’re right, we’re not! But they were, and they had to be stopped. This was the only way.”

“There’s always another way,” Scott said

Stiles shook his head and walked away. “You’re wrong.”

 

He didn’t know how to make Scott see, make him understand. There was a difference between killing for fun, and killing out of necessity. But Scott could only see the world as black and white, good and evil; people who took lives were evil, and everyone else was good. It was that blind naiveté that caused Stiles to leave in the first place.

“He’ll come around,” Derek said, wrapping his arms around Stiles. “He always does.”

Stiles knew he was right, because he and Scott were brothers, and also because Derek and Isaac and Cora and Davis still had gold eyes, not blue, despite the fact that they had taken lives in the fight. The supernatural world recognized that there were different kinds of killing, eventually Scott would learn too.

 

“Not that it hasn’t been fun,” Jackson said. It hadn’t been fun, not at all. “But I have to get back to London.”

Stiles really wasn’t sad to see him go, nor was he sad when they locked Peter back in Eichen House.

“I’m here when you need me,” Peter said with a gleeful wave. He hoped they wouldn’t need him again. They probably couldn’t get that lucky though.

 

“I suppose you’ll be leaving now, too,” Stiles said.

Derek nodded. “Not for too long.”

“You’ll come back though?”

“Mmhm.” Derek buried his face in Stiles neck. “I love you.” Then he froze, like he hadn’t really meant to say those words.

Stiles smiled and clung to him a little tighter, unwilling to let him run. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I love you too.”

“There’s a teaching position opening at UC Beacon Heights,” Derek said a while later. “I looked into it, well, I applied, and they accepted me. I just have to do this semester at Penn State, then I’ll be back, for good.”

“Five months,” Stiles said. “That’s five months.” Five months could feel like a lifetime, but it was also definitive, a set time that Derek would be back. “I can do five months.”

 

Derek left, and after only a few days, Stiles was pretty sure he _couldn’t_ do five months. Five months was a long ass time. He called Derek and told him as much.

 

There was a lot of work to do in Beacon Hills, and it made passing the time a little easier. His territory had been unstable, and the rest of the supernatural world knew as much. The nemeton was active, still drawing creatures in, some of them terrible, some just confused.

Stiles thought he could make it stable again, maybe even turn off the beacon that called others in. It would take time, time and a lot of effort. He still had months to go before graduation, and school felt like hell, but he’d been through hell already. Balancing classes and his need to fix the town would be harder than he expected, but not impossible.

He had a family again, a pack, and most days that was all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were so many things that I thought would happen here that didn’t, and I’m a little disappointed, but on the whole, I’m pretty happy with how things turned out, and I’m so grateful to you all for helping me let it grow.


End file.
